MAGGIE KOGER

MAGGIE KOGER THE LOST SHEEP

A fascination with back roads and two-lane tracks that used to be roads excited my dad. In the 1950s the population of the Owyhee’s had dwindled to ranchers and their cattle, sheepherders and their charges, and a few bands of wild horses. Only one of these groups paid taxes, and road maintenance fell short of posting Detour signs. On the trip my dad had planned for us that Sunday we would pass a Road Closed sign as well as a Cross At Your Own Risk warning in front of an old wooden bridge. But still, what could possibly stop a new four-wheel drive Jeep with its winch and toolbox, a stronghold for the axe, a shovel, and some chain?

When we loaded up that fall morning in the Jeep wagon, we looked a lot like any other family of five outfitted for a picnic excursion. We didn’t own the Willys, but Dad had permission from his sales manager to drive it on Sundays. He could use our rambles into the Owyhee’s as evidence for praising the vehicle as a fine family automobile. Many a rancher cherished the hope of buying a new Jeep wagon, and Dad’s testimony could help persuade the wife.

Dad loved the Jeep about as much as a man could love a machine, and he found that asking about this road or that bridge when he stopped by a rancher’s place helped him strike up a lively conversation with an eye to selling a Jeep or a tractor or two. A good Sunday drive involved a lot of researching the condition of the route and confirming that some intrepid traveler had been

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able to “get through” a particular loop. If forced by an impassable washout or a rock slide to turn back partway, it was important to only be a reasonable distance from home so that the driver wouldn’t end up with an angry wife riding shotgun and hungry children crying in the back.

Although we had been on similar trips a few times that year, we had no idea that this particular journey would take a turn into a life-saving adventure. I was ten and ready for a day of kicking sagebrush to roust out grasshoppers and lizards. My sisters and I enjoyed this freedom from Sunday school, although it would come as a bit of a shock to learn how biblical lessons could apply in the wilds of the Owyhee’s. Our “memory verses” often reminded us that children and sheep occupied similar roles on earth, so I understood that a good shepherd is a savior who keeps his flock together. But more importantly, I was to learn that it’s not a good idea to get yourself lost from the fold. Or in the way of eagles.

Most of the roads we traveled on the desert plateau consisted of narrow dirt lanes with ribbons of grass running down the middle. A trail of dust rolled skyward behind us as we jounced along at a good speed. But there were more extreme challenges in the rugged terrain of the mountains where steep inclines threatened to strip the Jeep’s gears or brakes. Sometimes we’d have to lug rocks and branches to fill washouts so that they’d support this or that tire. When erosion left small boulders blocking the road, we’d wrap a chain around them and rev the Jeep’s engine to winch them out of the way. Once we even forded a creek where the remnants of a flash flood had swelled it up so much that

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the Jeep floated!

The old roads followed tracks left by pioneers searching for a new home and trails left by pack mules carting supplies to hungry miners. Along these “thoroughfares” the ghosts of the past made their appearance. In Silver City alone, the Catholic Church nestled into the hillside, the Masonic meeting hall stretched over the creek, and the cemetery coddled the bones of the town gentry as well as the ne’er-do-wells. More remotely, boulder-locked entrances to closed mines lay surrounded by tumble-down dwellings and heaps of refuse waiting to be investigated. History, legend, and fantasy mingled in these treasure troves.

The vast stretch of the Owyhee’s also offered “thunder eggs,” drab, round hunks of rock formed in lava flows with amethysts, garnets, and other gems inside. Some places you could find agates worked loose by erosion and scattered on top of the ground. As if these weren’t enough to give a rock hound a heavenly time, there were chunks of petrified wood the size of tree stumps to be harvested and hauled home. In pursuit of such treasures we sometimes took hundredmile round trips to places like War Eagle, Delamar, and Leslie Gulch.

The Sunday of the lost sheep came about when Dad aimed to take us on a nice drive through Succor Creek Canyon with only one “aside” into a box canyon. When we reached the turnoff, we passed the Road Closed sign and came to a dilapidated bridge. Dad stopped the Jeep, got out his pocket notebook, and stood counting the remaining poles supporting the wooden structure. Meanwhile, I started kicking in a prairie dog hole at the side of the road and nearly tripped over a broken-

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down Cross At Your Own Risk sign. When Dad decided that the bridge would handle the weight of the Jeep and its occupants, he invited us all to get in, but I was too scared. He finally let me walk behind the car, even though he knew I’d have been safer in the Jeep than on foot if the bridge buckled.

The crossing brought us into a small canyon with a spring in the middle surrounded by a cluster of willows and green grass – green being a rare but welcome sight in such dry country. Stern basalt cliffs, the same as the ones that Succor Creek Canyon is noted for, lined the edges. Dad had planned to take an old trail up over the ridge to get out of the canyon and back down to the main road, until he saw the turkey vultures. Circling far overhead, the black birds had clearly congregated where a carcass – or a potential carcass – would afford them a good meal.

As the scavengers above kept watch, Dad used his field glasses to scan the sides of the cliff. Voilà! A ewe and her two lambs crouched at the base. We raced upward through the broken shale, its shards cutting into our ankles. The rocks clattered and slid as we struggled forward; making noise enough to spook any lizards hanging out nearby, but for once I completely forgot about lizards.

The ewe’s foot had caught in a crevice, trapping her. The lambs tried to hide beneath her belly as we approached, butting her sides and bleating in terror. Even worse, one of the ewe’s eyes dangled from a string of tissue – she’d been attacked. Ah, but not by a carrion feeder! A predator, probably a golden eagle, had swooped down and clawed her. “Eagles go for the eyes first,” Dad said. The farm animals I knew about at home

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all ate from troughs or pans. I’d never witnessed the way some wild animals made their living by killing other animals, and I formed a new respect for eagles on the spot.

We girls fetched ropes from the toolbox in the Jeep and Dad and Mom tied the ewe after pulling her foot loose from its basalt prison. They trussed her rodeostyle, cinching two front legs and a hind one together. Down she came and into the back of the Jeep. My sisters held the lambs until Dad lifted them in. We found an abandoned pan and gave the animals water from the spring before quenching our own thirst with well water from the canvas bag on the front of the Jeep.

Then, for the first time I could remember, we turned around and headed for home, trekking back the same way we had come. The lamb riding in my lap kicked and bleated so much I hardly noticed our trip back across the wooden bridge. The rest of Succor Creek Canyon would have to wait for another day; we even forgot about eating our picnic, and we kept the windows down the rest of the trip on account of the sheep smell.

The ewe died on the way home. We bottle-fed the lambs and later sent their wool to a mill, receiving the warmest blankets we ever owned in return. In the long run, I believe my lifelong interest in the avian race began that day, as well as a heartfelt understanding of the need for staying with the flock, herd, or other sheltering company. I still didn’t see our family as much different from a lot of others that scouted the Owyhee’s, except that in ours, one little girl would treasure a story about a detour for years to come.

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DIVERSION

The driver asked me if I would mind another brief detour, this time to a tombstone salesroom across the street from the cemetery. I wasn’t a Bokononist then, so I agreed with some peevishness. As a Bokononist, of course, I would have agreed gaily to go anywhere anyone suggested. As Bokonon says: ‘Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.’ —

KURT VONNEGUT